ROMAN
I ignore it.
I get enough unknown numbers in a week to fill a cemetery. Men asking for meetings. Women asking for favors. Lawyers trying to sound more important than they are. People who think access can be bought if they use enough flattering words.
This one says only:
You left very quickly last night.
No name. No context.
I put the phone face down on the desk and let Elena continue with the afternoon schedule.
“Kostin at one, Antwerp at two-thirty, and the arbitration call moved to four if you still want it there.”
My phone lights again.
I’m trying not to take it personally.
Then, before I can decide whether to block the number, it vibrates again.
Though I probably should.
I pick up the phone. Still no name.
“Elena,” I say.
“Yes?”
“Pause.”
She closes the folder in her hands and waits.
I read the messages again. The tone is familiar now. Too pleased with itself. Too sure that annoyance and flirtation are interchangeable.
Then the third message comes.
I’m being punished with lunch and bad company.
And the fourth, seconds later:
Also, your little dance was wasted on me if you’re going to disappear after.
That narrows it down.
By the time the fifth message arrives, I already know.
I’m stuck with my stepsister’s brats and that dreadful old man from last night. Save me.
Vika. Of course.
I stare at the screen for one beat too long. Not because of her. Because of the wording.
Stepsister’s brats.
That sort of casual contempt is exactly the kind of thing women like her think passes for wit. It usually tells me nothing useful.
Today, it definitely does. Something in me goes still.
I type back before I can decide not to.
Where?
Her response comes almost instantly, which means she has been holding the phone and waiting.
So you do care. Marlowe’s by Pier 6.
Elena watches my face. “Bad news?”
“Unclear.”
“Woman?”
I look at her.
She does not apologize.
I stand. “Cancel Kostin.”
Her brows lift. “The lunch?”
“All of it.”
“He flew in from Chicago.”
“He can fly back.”
That gets the smallest pause. Then she says, “We’re going to Pier 6.”
“Yes.”
She closes the folder. “Understood.”
The river drags a hard wind off its surface, and the lunch crowd along the pier is full of women in expensive coats pretending they are comfortable and men in cashmere pretending they know boats.
Marlowe’s is one of those places that wants to be both exclusive and relaxed, which means white tablecloths outside, heat lamps that never quite work, oysters on every other table, and waiters with the expression of men who judge your watch before your reservation.
The hostess starts to smile when I walk in, then recognizes me and loses the smile in favor of something more respectful.
I don’t ask for the table.
Katerina is facing the water.
The children are with her, and for half a second that’s all I notice.
Sofia in a red coat, climbing half in and half out of her chair because stillness is apparently against her religion.
Nikolai beside Katerina, smaller and quieter, his attention fixed on the bread basket with the kind of seriousness other boys reserve for weapons or trains.
Then I see Katerina.
And my body reacts before thought can catch up.
She’s wearing cream today.
Cream wool fitted through the waist, her hair down, dark glasses pushed up into it like she came here intending to be left alone and was punished for the hope.
She turns slightly to say something to Sofia, and the movement draws the coat close over her body in a way that hits me straight in the groin.
Jesus Christ. I adjust my jacket as I walk.
Not subtle enough, probably. But there is no dignified way to discover that one look at a woman you last kissed in a corridor can still make you hard in broad daylight.
Elena notices. Of course she notices. She says nothing because she values her continued employment and my patience.
Vika sees us first.
She rises so quickly she nearly knocks over her glass. “Roman.”
Her face lights up with a pleasure so immediate I almost admire the lack of self-respect.
She comes around the table before anyone else can stop her and throws her arms around me as if we are old lovers reunited instead of two people who exchanged a dance and several bad instincts.
I catch her by the elbows before she can press herself properly against me.
It still isn’t enough to keep me from smelling her perfume.
Too sweet. Too eager. Unfortunate.
“Viktoria,” I say.
She either doesn’t hear the warning or chooses not to. “You came.”
“Yes.”
“I was beginning to think you only existed in very expensive rooms.”
“That would certainly save time,” I say drily.
Behind me, Elena is taking in the table with the expression of a woman cataloguing contaminants.
Good. I’m not the only one who dislikes Vika on sight.
Katerina has gone completely still.
Not surprised. Not exactly. More like a woman whose day has just taken a turn for the worse and who is deciding whether to show it or not.
Then her gaze drops briefly to my jacket.
To the place beneath it I had to adjust two seconds earlier like a schoolboy with no discipline.
Her mouth curls. In disgust.
I almost laugh.
There is something so specifically Katerina about that reaction. Not embarrassment. Not fluster. Just pure judgment.
As if my body having a response to seeing her is somehow vulgar and inconvenient of me.
Arkady Belov is seated at the table too, of course. Slimy even in daylight. He rises halfway when I arrive and immediately regrets it when he realizes no one is making the introduction easy for him.
“Mr. Sokolov,” he says. “We meet again.”
“Yes,” I say, because nothing else is required.
The bastard actually looks pleased to be sharing lunch with two women who would both rather chew through the tablecloth than be there. Men like him mistake proximity for relevance.
Vika finally lets go of my arm. Elena steps in just enough to rescue the air.
“Miss Markova,” she says to Vika, cool as polished stone, “you seem to have mistaken enthusiasm for familiarity.”
Vika turns slowly.
It’s actually impressive how much dislike two elegant women can fit into one glance.
“I’m sorry?” Vika says.
Elena’s smile does not improve. “You nearly spilled on his coat.”
“And that concerns you because?”
“Because I have to deal with the consequences of poor judgment more often than I’d like.”
Vika’s brows lift. “I didn’t realize assistants were allowed opinions.”
Elena removes one glove finger by finger. “I get paid for it.”
Sofia giggles.
Nikolai looks at me like he’s trying to decide whether adults are always this stupid.
Katerina closes her eyes briefly. Then she opens them, looks at the sky as if asking for patience, and says, “I’m going to take the children to the edge of the pier before one of you starts throwing cutlery.”
Without waiting for permission from anyone, she stands.
I admire that.
I also watch her too closely as she gathers Sofia’s scarf, takes Nikolai’s hand, and walks away from the table with the sort of tight, graceful anger I remember intimately.
Arkady begins saying something to me about business.
I do not hear a word of it.
All I see is Katerina reaching the railing with the children, Sofia trying to lean too far over the water, Nikolai correcting her, Katerina bending toward them with one hand on each small shoulder.
I should stay where I am.
But I don’t.
Vika and Elena are still going at each other, so I take the opportunity to step away.
Katerina hears me coming before I reach her. She stiffens, but she doesn’t turn around at once. She adjusts Sofia’s hat, says something low to Nikolai, then finally looks at me.
The river wind has reddened her cheeks. It suits her.
“You must really enjoy women fawning all over you,” she says.
I stop beside her, close enough to lower my voice without the children hearing, not so close that she can accuse me of cornering her.
I raise a brow. “Is that what’s going on here?”
She laughs once, under her breath, with no real amusement in it. “Please. Don’t insult both of us.”
I glance back toward the table where Vika and Elena are still locked in some quiet, elegant war while Arkady tries to look important enough to survive it.
Then I look at Katerina again.
Her mouth is tight. Her eyes are bright in the way they get when she’s angrier than she wants to show.
And beneath the irritation, beneath the disgust she tried to pin on me a moment ago, there is something else I know too well.
I lean one forearm on the railing beside her and say, “You’re the one who looked offended.”
Her eyes flash. “I looked disgusted.”
“With me?”
“With all of it.”
That, I believe.
The wind lifts a strand of her hair across her mouth. I have to fight the urge to move it myself.
Behind us, Sofia says, “Mama, can I throw bread to the birds?”
“No,” Katerina and I say at the same time.
The children both turn to look at us.
Sofia huffs and leans against the railing instead, dramatically oppressed by all authority. Nikolai stands closer to his mother, one hand tucked into her coat sleeve, watching the river with the kind of seriousness children should not have and some do anyway.
I look at Katerina.
“What are you doing here with Arkady?”
Her mouth tightens. “Enjoying myself enormously.”
“Katerina.”
She exhales through her nose and finally looks at me properly. “I’m not here by choice.”
Her face hardens. “I’m here because my father decided I should be.”
I glance back toward the table, and then look at her again. “He’s making a match.”
She gives me a flat little smile that has no humor in it at all. “Well done. You’re still very quick.”
I ask, “And you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you agreeing to it?”
Her jaw tightens. For a second, I think she’ll give me another smart answer. Instead, she looks past me at the water and says, very quietly, “I don’t agree to most things in my life. They just happen around me.”
That shuts me up.
She seems to realize she said too much, because she straightens at once and the mask comes back down.